#and also i didnt want there to only be two ships on the list

[bilbao-song]

ulterior motives: an unnecessarily elaborate guide & review

okay literally no one asked for this but here is my full synopsis of the ulterior motives album. i wish more secret time capsule-ish albums from past decades would be released so i can start doing this type of thing more often

🐬 disclaimer: i think only like two? three? people who follow me are (currently.....) interested in this as far as i'm aware. therefore it's going to be sooooo self indulgent and tbh partially just for my own satisfaction <3 but hopefully someone will find it useful/enjoyable/etc.!! also it's super long but like...idk it's a Review. also if ur interested but otherwise have no clue what this is about, i'm putting some useful links at the veeeery bottom :-)

🐠 relevant introductory notes: im not rlly a lostwave person actually. like as a concept i think it's very cool, but this is litcherally the only one i've come across that appeals to me thus far. i was somehow exposed to it like a year ago and went bananas bc i enjoy funky little 80s songs and i desperately wanted that song in particular. i think some people have kind of dismissed this as like, a ~tiktok thing~ and well <3 i don't care. tiktok didnt exist in the 80s but this music sure did. anyway i would urge you to ignore that entirely at this point and just enjoy the funky 80s bops no matter how they got here (actually that's like part of why i'm even making this post. consider this like...a guide. forget tiktok exists and learn to love this album full of 80s music w me)

🐬 preliminary assessment of vibes: half cute 80s synthpop and half things that make me want to pretend to be really elegant on a cruise ship somewhere between like 1987-1992, a period of time in which i was not alive but enjoy pretending i have some kind of experience with anyway. sometimes it kind of feels like music that someone would put over an old video of people walking around a mall, which is probably really appealing to a lot of people tbh. that seems to be a well-liked vibe recently. *not* an album to listen to if ur looking for something deep/poetically meaningful/super serious, 10000000% an album to listen to if u want something catchy/fun/zesty/poppy/very 80s!! it is very muchly unpretentious music for a good time

also may i just say that throughout this album there are like, random elements that remind me of like 68769376386896 different other artists who are varying degrees of wildly unrelated to this album. i mean like, there are brief moments that give me michael jackson vibes (tangentially related!), and every once in awhile something reminds me of frankie valli (??????????). that's only the tip of the iceberg tbh but if i made an exhaustive list i feel like it would just look like me listing off every third thing i have ever heard of. also a lot of people have made comparisons to wham! and i can definitely see why, soooo if that’s your type of thing!! ur in luck

anyway:

🐠 a track by track analysis & review:

to preface this: if ur skeptical...the sweet spot for me is like, tracks 8-11, and if you like those, try 4 as well. i like the album start to finish tbh, but if you just want a little sampling for now, i suggest starting with those. beyond that, upon putting this together i have noticed that you can kind of break this album into categories vibe-wise. tracks 1-4 seem like they wanted to be long lost singles, 5-7 = Vibing Music. smooth and pleasant sounds to have on in the background. not the sort of thing you’d probably sing along to but the vibes are immaculate. a calm moment before things get zesty again, 8-11 = back to back hits. cream of the crop. exquisite cuisine. all pretty upbeat and poppy and i genuinely cannot imagine not enjoying this at least a little. 12-13 = very nice closing tracks to put a neat bow on it <3

pink titles = my top recommendations (i'm trying to be selective here)

here is the full album on youtube and here it is on spotify. individual youtube links next to each song title :-)

#1 - chemistry - [x] - excellent choice as a first track bc the quality is very Crisp and it kind of encompasses both the whole 80s synthpop vibe and the smooth, kind of classy thing that a lot of these songs have going on. this one is very popular among those of us who have been eagerly waiting for this album to be released and it’s super nice to have a full version available now!! we had like a minute long sample of it there for awhile and i kept listening to a three minute looped version on youtube bc i was desperate. anyway!! there’s a LOT going on here. it flows well, is super catchy, and i really like it. would probably be fun to dance to if ur into that sort of thing

#2 - your guy - [x] - smooth and snazzy!! makes u want to light some candles. spoken portions in songs are always kind of funny to me for some reason but i can lean into the overall vibe and embrace it. very cute. one of my favorite things about it are the moments where the backing vocals are like, drastically deeper than the lead vocals (around 1:42ish). love that

#3 - ulterior motives - [x] - this one needs no introduction i guess lmao. tbh i feel like i still kind of need more time to absorb this version as compared to the old version — being entirely honest, if i pay very close attention, i CAN pinpoint a few little odd things going on with it quality-wise. idk what that's about (definitely doesn’t seem to be a skill issue lmao these guys know their shit) but it also doesn't ruin it for me or anything. i feel like a major part of the issue is just down to being sooo used to hearing one particular version. any difference good or bad is going to stand out. whatever, it’s still a delicious song (and there are pleeeeeenty of different cleaned up versions ripped from the movie to be found on youtube if anyone is just fully unsatisfied w this one)

#4 - man needs love - [x] - THIS is one of the best ones hands down. once again we are monologuing in the middle of a song but imo it works pretty well here. it feels veeeery of the era and i definitely feel like this could've been tremendously popular if not for the whole Never Got Released thing. it is super fun and catchy. if u came for the wham! comparisons this should be ur starting point

#5 - so in love - [x] - the beginning to this one is soooooooooo exquisite to me. my overall take on this one is that it's kind of...well. Vibing Music. like i would never choose or recommend this for karaoke night but it is excellent for having on in the background while you do basically anything else. smooth and snazzy yet again. definitely creates some kind of vibe. also i really like a lot of the vocals on this one

#6 - you turn me on - [x] - when i first saw the title i did not expect to enjoy this one quite so much, BUT it's actually pretty great.......visceral subject matter notwithstanding (that's just rlly not my thing usually but i think i'm the odd one out here so disregard this lmao). very chill vibes; kind of in a similar category to the previous track re: Vibing Music status. lots of interesting sounds and things, very very VERY of the era. importantly, it contains that instrument that i can only ever think of as "lizard noise thing" (apparently that's a vibraslap), and that appeals to me immensely.

#7 - rock me to sleep - [x] - more Vibing Music. initially i wasn’t sure how to feel about the whole whispering thing but i’ve concluded that they pull it off well. it reminds me of something but i really can’t place what it is — some kind of particularly funky and vibey 80s background music type of thing. late 80s/early 90s fashion show music!! for sure

#8 - think i'm gonna cry - [x] - back to the more upbeat vibes. another one of my favorites!! possibly THE favorite for me. seems a little underrated among fans thus far imo so allow me to champion it here. kind of similar vibe-wise to man needs love, so if u liked that one then you'll probably feel positively about this one too. definitely another one that should appeal to anyone for whom the wham! comparison sparks interest. i honestly think this is like...one of the best tracks. if i didn't know any better you could have easily convinced me that this was popular in its era bc the overall quality is there and it reeeeaaaaally has a poppy vibe that feels almost universally appealing. it feels like a fun song for summer. also pretty short in length, so v approachable to anyone feeling impatient <3

#9 - potion of emotion - [x] - another one that i thought i wouldn't be a huge fan of when i saw the title lmao but i was wrong!! i love the deeper vocals here and just ?? well. basically everything about it. not to bust out a technical term but i do just absolutely love the synthiness. there's something kind of satisfying about the lyrics...i mean they're not like, deep elaborate poetry lmao it just sounds neat from like, an auditory perspective. anyway, it’s smooth yet fun. i want to be hearing this on a cruise ship

#10 - one last look - [x] - deliciousss. i feel like this one is almost a sssslightly different flavor of 80s vibe but i have no idea how describe it. maybe ummm idk more pop-rock than just straight pop. feels pretty summer-y. very 80s classic rock-sounding guitar parts (delicious). if i had heard this on the radio at some point i would've wholly accepted it as just like. idk a normal popular 80s song i just never happened upon before (this applies to a Lot of these tbh)

#11 - nothing lasts forever - [x] - another solid favorite for me!!! suuuuuper catchy, has been stuck in my head for like three days!!!!!! i love it!!!!! fun horns!!!!!! idk what else to say but it's fun, upbeat, and ummmmmm. one of the best songs here imo

#12 - language of love - [x] - actually probably my least favorite, but it's still fine. from what i've seen it seems pretty popular though so who knows!! i feel like putting it second to last was a good idea because it does kind of seem like…idk, calming down after four very zesty ones in a row.

#13 - lie school - [x] - if u feel dissatisfied with the new ulterior motives, this is like...the next best thing. very similar vibes both in terms of theme and sound, but not in like, a repetitive way. i actually rlly like that it's the last track bc it kind of feels like sort of a callback to ulterior motives, and i looooooove when albums do that kind of thing. anyway i definitely feel that it’s a little……hmmm. idk the whole school thing is just such a highly specific theme and they really stick with it. but i like it >:-)

🐬 closing thoughts:

i just really really like it tbh. i hope i have converted at least a few people not only bc it's a worthy cause but also bc i spent literal hours spread across two days writing this. shoutout to christopher and philip booth, thank you for this whole entire album and also for inexplicably moving to my town in the midwestern usa despite being from the uk. idk why you did that but i think it's very cool and learning that information after a year of hoping somebody would find ulterior motives made me feel like i was living in some kind of weird dream. also. vinyl release when?? <3

additional links:

rolling stone article that pretty thoroughly explains what this is about

my tag where i've been putting relevant posts thus far

album on youtube

album on spotify

[girltigerclaw]

breaking into ur house rn

top ten characters and bottom ten. reasons are optional

I just finished this chart thing i think i actually stole from your blog a few months ago <3 Slightly edited to my own prefs.

If anyone wants the template check the reblogs, and feel free to add you own. I'd love to see. I'm just rambling under here:

Leafpool: She is more special and sacred than the virgin mary. She has everything. Daughter of the first protagonist, ex boyfriend for me to hate, TONS of wlw situationships<3, a lifetime of tragedy, and some of the most gorgeous canon art to exist.

Crookedstar: Crookedstar is a trans woman to me. Her life is genuinely just so tragic and fucked, I love it. The erins asked: “How much truama, death and misfortune can you fit into a single cat?” and then they wrote Crookedstar’s promise.

Tawnypelt: GIRLS WHO HATE THEIR FATHERS. The erins dont love her like I do.

Tallstar: I love old men… I fucking love seeing older characters and how much they’ve changed from their younger selves. Tallstar is considered one of, if not the most peaceful leader in the clans. But also when he was like 19 he went on a quest to fucking murder a guy :3

Cloudstar: I rlly do not care abt anyone in Skyclan(I like Leafstar but she's not a fav yknow?) Cloudstar... he was based as fuck. Why did Starclan get away with this shit for real??

Scourge: It’s fucking Scourge. He’s awesome

Briarlight: I’m disabled and I love her. She has such a consistent fun, sweet personality and she makes me happy!!<3

RavenBarley: It deserves all the attention and hype it gets. Though I wish mlm ships didn’t overshadow wlw ones in this fandom, RavenBarley is genuinely well written and makes me very emotional even if the publisher didnt allow it to be explicitly canon.

CrookedBlue: TRANS WOMEN CROOKEDSTAR YURI. Two leaders having a forbidden relationship and kits is way more interesting than Oakheart. The angst of Crooked and Blue sitting next to eachother every gathering while the entire forest has their eyes on them. Don’t look for too long, don’t let the mourning slip into your voice. You have to pretend your lover is a stranger. You… have become strangers. You can never be together again. You're enemies now. This is what we wanted, isn’t it? …We’ll never be happy again.

Mothwing: Her novella delving into her relationship with Hawkfrost was so good and heartbreaking.

Heathertail: Daughter of leader, sister of a major villian, and former love interest of a protagonist! Why did she fall off the second po3 ended. She’s shown to be very compassionate and willing to put her own feelings aside for the sake of others. Would’ve honestly prefered her as a mate to Lionblaze or get a pov herself over the nothing we got.

Blackstar: *Murders an elderly woman trying to stop me from kidnapping children. Supports a dictator openly abusing/neglecting children and the elderly. Murders a man for refusing to kill mixed raced children- then tells said man’s sister that she will never be safe.* Man…. i sure do feel bad for abusing and killing all of those people…. Good thing I will face no consequences and proceed to be made leader, where I will have even more power over the wellbeing of others.

I hate. This guy.

The New Prophecy: A classic. My first series was actually tnp! i feel more attached to first arc cats tho, if you couldn't already tell by my list lmao

Johanna Map- Best Tawnypelt content out there

BlueQuince: My personal handcrafted, homemade Yuri. Bluefur feels terrible about Tiny going missing and promises Quince she’ll help her find him. They never did, but they had a very… fleeting but intimate relationship. Quince is grieving and Bluefur feels so overwhelmed by the duties in her clan. They’ve always thought of eachother since but never met again.

Tigerclaw: My name sake<3 The angst of his earlier life is so, so facinating to me. Starclan being straight fucked up and decided killing him is their only option? He was a kid and they saw him as a lost cause from the start. They never tried any other methods, never tried to steer him in the right direction or… even just take it into their own hands and kill him themself, which they have SHOWN they’re capable of.

They watched all the the horrific crimes he commited, entirely aware they were going to happen. Thats. Fucking. Horrifying. Starclan is scary as shit… and his death? FANTASTIC. I only wish he’d gotten lives from cats he killed so that him coming back to life to suffer over and over was an actual curse from Starclan and not blessings. They knew how he would die and they gave him the lives to torture him for his sins…

Flywhisker: Adhd girlies. Painfully relate to that feeling of the constant scolding for never being “good enough” because I prefer to do things a certain way or struggle to focus. So, SO happy for her when she left the clans! You don’t have to prove yourself to anyone! Hope she’s happy and warm indoors with her brother💕

(P.S. I was very suprised to find she actually had an official art piece!)

Bluestar: Get behind me women with mental disorders. I will defend you. Beautifully complex and tragic character, my favorite written in the series. Literally can't think of a single other female character in handled as seriously and with the complexity of Bluestar. (Although her super edition was a bit of an L with how others treated her, it ultimately makes her breakdown even more painful.)

Exile from Shaodwclan: Nightstar my beloved! He's such a great guy. The rightful leader of Shadowclan, always and forever.

Ravenpaw's Farewell: HE DIED IN BARLEY'S ARMS, TELLING HIM HE WILL FIND HIM, NO MATTER WHERE HE IS. FUCK.

Crookedstar art: So beautiful. I genuinely think she's one of the prettiest cats in the series. This along with her official art by Wayne Mcloughlin.

Leopardstar: As a kid I hated her and loved Blackfoot, now I hate Blackfoot and love her. #feminism. But seriously I think she has way more going for her than he ever has. Her father is a medicine cat who hates violence, the DRASTIC change in Riverclan's view of outsiders upon Crookedstar's death and her leadership. Her already having a position of power before proving she's unworthy of it. (Unlike Blackstar who gets rewarded for his racism and violence by being made leader afterwards) and the fact she has to interact with her victims on a daily basis after what she did.

The writings attempts to redeem her are really lame and dismissive of the actually damage she did, but at the very least they TRIED to do something else with her. Personally, I would have loved to see her assassinated by Mistyfoot. Just like her mother Bluestar was almost killed all those moons ago by Tigerclaw... The parallels of violence for power and violence for peace. A victim repeating the actions of the very man who killed her brother to put an end to what he started in Riverclan.... A shadow in Riverclan, if you will. (<-Pretending erin hunter has hired me to rewrite their series)

Windclan: Tunneling as a concept and inviting outsiders into their clan so friendly and casual makes the clan seems so much more diverse than the others. It always stuck out to me!

Andddd there are my current warrior cat options as of 2023! If someone actually read this whole ramble ily<3

[kmmachilles]

heres the list of my favourite shadowhunter couples from all the series (not including twp for obvious reasons) bc i cant sleep

TID: Gideon n Sophie. I KNOW KNOW EVERYONE LOOVES HERONGRAYSTAIRS I DO TOO THEYRE MY HEART ND SOUL but gideon n sophie man. cmon. theres sweet hurt sophie that thinks men like gideon r assholes bc of her former employers son and will, and gideon REINFORCES that by constantly talking in spanish while hes actually absolutely down BAD for sophie. she thinks shes not good enough for him, her being a mundane 'servant' and 'ugly' from her scarred face and him being the eldest son carrying the great shadowhunter lightwood name. and then hes just there ordering scones to his room just to see sophie, and ending up stashing them under the bed bc he doesn't even LIKE them. and pretty, smart sophie, although FURIOUS at first, goes 'so yea u dont like scones. what about SPONGE CAKES???????? THEYRE MY SPECIALTY' and then he falls so in love with her and proceeds to tell everyone hes marrying her before even proposing to her. i love them.

TLH: Alastair n Thomas. i love love love them not only their pair but them as separate characters too. esp bc the two didnt have the kind of shit the other ships had to deal with like james n cordelia were 'OH HE LOVES GRACE BUT I LOVE HIM / OH I LOVE GRACE BUT IM MARRIED TO CORDELIA / I SHOULD RUN AWAY W MATTHEW / fuck im in love with cordelia.' and lucie n jesse were like 'IM IN LOVE W A GHOST WHO'S THE SON OF A WOMAN WHO HATES MY FAMILY / shes only in love w me bc im a ghost and she likes writing stories so im one of her stories SHE DOESNT REALLY LOVE ME BUT I LOVE HER BUT IM A GHOST SO I CANT *REALLY* LOVE HER PROPERLY LIKE SHE DESERVES' and ari and anna were like 'OH I LOVE HER BUT I WANT KIDS SO I'LL MARRY CHARLES WHO, BTW, IS GAY :3 / OH I LOVE HER but im a stony heartbreaker women, lock your daughters and then yourselves im coming after you / oh my god i cant marry charles I LOVE YOU ANNA TAKE ME BAACK / ha! im stony heartbreaker.' and we all know the problem w matthew n cordelia, and alastair and charles AND grace and christopher (my heart stopped beating i swear to you). like i know Alastair and thomas definitely HAD to overcome some shit but Thomas KNEW he liked guys and alastair and alastair was pr sure about it too so when they got together, they GOT together ykwim??? no hanky panky. plus theres also the 'thomas-is-basically-michelangelos-david' so yea. no brainer. theyre my fav.

TMI: Alec and Magnus. okay so this is for both obvious reasons (fan favourite) and some other personal ones. Living where i do, i had no idea you could like the same gender as yourself or ltr anything about the LGBTQ+ community at all. These two were the first gay ship i had EVER read and they are what lead me to be as confident in my sexuality as i am right now. they introduced me to the concept of thinking beyond what i was told or shown by the people that surround me and look into the world the right way, without projecting judgement. i love them for that. theyre my comfort characters and the one of the biggest reasons i am who i am right now. also magnus is pr much why i adore glitter and i manage to put it on my face every other day ahaha

TDA: Diana n Gwynn. a very, very close second is Mark n Cristina n Keiran. but about Diana and Gwynn, they literally have my entire soul im not even kidding you. Gwyn is the first person Diana opens up to about her transition and its honestly so heartwarming that Gwyn, the leader of the Wild Hunt, known to be vicious and feared by faerie, is literally just there for her to lean on. He supports her and is so, so calm and soft with her it genuinely melts me. like, this man is basically the reaper of souls and he rides a magnificent steed into the night but hes so gentle with Diana. obviously my obsession w them is reinforced by the fact that the FIRST time Gwynn sees Diana he goes 'O' and is all like 'HELLO my fair lady beautiful one gorgeous strong lovely lady' and gives her an acorn like 'call me ;)' and diana my love just, THROWS the acorn to julian and emma and goes 'do w that whatever u will' and acts like she doesnt care and when they call on gwyn he comes to help nd immediately goes '...THAT WASNT FOR YOU but ig i'll help bc ur the magnificent lady's brats :/'

so yes thats it. now pls, whatever fucking ghost is haunting me with these thoughts, PLEASE LET ME SLEEP

[ahcoffeebeans]

whats something that you almost asked for secret samol but didnt? or an idea you had that was too specific or not developed enough to be a prompt ? ^_^

oh, I just wrote down what came to mind immediately!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I like prompts that involve an activity or an active position for the central character that can be expanded into multiple directions. I like to write one to two sentences only - specific in who they are and what they're doing, but broad in how that scene can be interpreted!!!

this is also my first Secret Samol, so I'm not sure if I made good prompts... BUT!!!! I did base it off of stuff I'd seen from previous years. I think everyone can guess which characters I asked for... and which ships... you should answer it tho, beeelderly!!!!!!!!! did you sign up? what were your almost prompts ADDENDUM:

I did want characters that weren't on the list, like Already and Their Bluff City Commune-Polycule and Cursed Urn

[socksandbuttons]

Bestie...us this to ramble about anything you like.

I'm tired but I want you to be happy.

OKAY SO u only have the full context but i get to ramble ALL I WANT AS U SAID SOOOO Im working on an au's design that i told you about. so far silhoutttes good i LOVE THEM. dying at this one concept CAUSE I LOVE IT SO MUCH HAVENT SEEN IT YET BUT SORT OF BUT NOT ENTIRELY. Anyway design wise 3/5 look good! i can work with them (its colors per usual bestie as u KNOW) the other two look too much like Vamp lunar and of eachother and im like ... i need to fix this cause vvamp lunar different (did u know i fleetingly considered using him for this??? i decided against it i like making new things) THEN THEN THERES MY OWN PIZZAPLEX AU which i havent touched in a while but i rmabled enough about it to you but i never showed off the thing i was doing about that. SUN!LUNAR AU PLAGUES ME ONCE A WHILE. BUT I DONT TALK ENOUGH ABOUT HIM. Love me some Solar vibing with his new bro and not having a crisis about the other two. Whomst are still having issues (I will remind u all that NICE ECLIPSE'S MOON was something he was also trying to save. That it wasn't verbal abuse until the more recent episodes when they reintroduced how his world is. Makes a good reason for Solar to leave tho.) My au's Moon has bad mood swings. Does Bloodmoon Exist? No. Does KC? No. Could they? KC can't anylonger unless they legit kept that code but i doubt that. (Due to Moon literally wanting it out. Solar not wanting to put him thru that ordeal and knowing it wont work in getting his moon back.) Bloodmoon was only made when Eclipse wanted OUT for realsies. Vs Solar and Sun may have been switching but nothing that opted violence for an answer. Just mistakes that they didnt realize would happen. Sun!Lunar literally being a result of trying to put code back in but just making a New Person instead. So they continue to find a way to help Sun (Solar just... desperately not trying to think about how unlikely that could be) OH YEAH REMEMBER WHEN MOON PROMISED TO FIX SOLARS STAR AND HIS MOON AND SUN??? YEAH??? well rip that that. We aint gonna think about that. what else can i ramble about POKEMON AU WHERE U HAVENT SEEN IN A WHILE BUT SOLAR FLARE... I FINALLY... FIGURED OUT HOW I WANNA DRAW/DESIGN HIM LOL Space AU i cant recall what ive shared ever. But Love me some thinking about how theyre made and their differences. Lots of cute ship stuff. Yes I forget to share those. Theres more bean au stuff i was thinking over too like when bloodmoon comes in. I definitely wanna think about his like... whole thing about trust and death and instance on not being a tool. Its partly why he doesnt get along well with Eclipse (Someone to put the aggression onto vs killcode who in this au actually still calls him son, Lunar this time round since NOT a hostage a better reception. Sun still has a panic attack. yknow i remembered solar WOULD actually exist.... one thing at a time i need to make a list of things here and there.)

[nukuome]

WWAAAAAAAHHHHH I LISTENED TO DEVISER GUYS

TAKE MY LIVE POSTS (BUT GO LISTEN TO IT FIRST PLEASE IM BEGGING YOU)

1 - I feel like all the people in stasis are like, Son clones, and this is like some fucked up human experiment. Idk what's up with Dog, but there's something up with him

2 - I think the thing Son saw in the room was his own incinerated body

Also I'm absolutely LOVING this sound design :3

Hmmm.... Dad's voice changes when he's doing something else on the ship while talking.

I hope dog is okay :((

What the fuck.

"That my son, if I'm not mistaken, is the devil." WWAAHAHAHGGGGG

So.... religion has been in both of these episodes...

Dad called Son the Shepard to the passengers, their savior. Is Son, like, Jesus???? Like he's being reincarnated over and over to protect these people???? Making Dad like God??

3 - NOT DOG

I wonder what Dog might represent..

I SWEAR TO GOD IF DOG IS FUCKING JUDAS OR SOMETHING

"You are the ship, Dad, you're everything here." Hmmm. Like. I don't know, GOD?????

The ship is like earth... his creation...

EEWWWWW STOP PULLING OFF YOUR NAILS

They're not in space.....

Also reclamation means the process of claiming something back or setting it right. Or, like in le Bible, to redeem, regain, save or rescue.

God sent Jesus to fulfill a specific task, to find his lost children and reclaim them. It was Jesus' sacrifices that gave the people the opportunity for a new life.

4 - AAAAHHHHHH I WAS RIGHT EXCEPT HE DIDNT DIE

DOG NOOOOOOOOO

Dog's a robot...

SON SNAPPED DOGS NECK TO PUT HIM DOWN NOOOOOO IM SOBBING

Dog is in Hell....

So. This is like. A lab basically? Are the real gods testing Son to see if he can escape his nature? What WAS his nature before then? Are they TRYING to turn him into a Jesus figure?- and are using the Devils to see if he can beat them? Or like, resist them? And what is Dog?? What does dog have to do with all of this? Dog and Dad are the only two people Son can remember when he wakes up, and if Dad is meant to be a guiding voice to Son then what is Dog? Support? Something to keep Son happy? Despite not having any memories Son is INCREDIBLY attached to Dog, and trusts him and wants to protect him, and sobs when he dies, and calls him the only thing he ever loved. What is Dog.. it sounded like Dog is a robot, and the Burned Son kept talking about how "they'll cut Dog open, then Son will see". Is Dog a monitor for Dad and/or the Higher Gods? Or his he just another part of this experiment.

This episode.... it actually makes me feel really sick thinking about it.......

5 - Deviser means an inventor, a creator, a planner, a conceiver,

DEVISED, pp. Given by will; bequeathed; contrived. deviser. DEVISER, n. One who contrives or invents; a contriver; an inventor. devising.

Another dog...

OH MY FUCKING GOOOODDDDDDDDD

DOG REALLY IS FUCKING JUDAS HE LED SON INTO RECLAMATION

Also, Harlan, WHAT DO YOU MEAN WHEN YOU SAID "IM NOT THAT GOOD OF A VA" YES YOU ARE

6 - 2 more episodes to go :3

Dad is.. an artificial God, an artificial creator

"Hate is not an aspect of humanity" THE FUCK DO YOU MEAN DAD WHO TOLD YOU THAT

THE BIBLE I KNEW IT

Oh Dad... Frankenstein's monster WAS humanity incarnate..... not pure evil.... Son killed humanity.

DAD FRANKENSTEIN IS NOOOTTTT A STORY OF GOOD AND EVIL 😭😭😭

Ew.... what the fuck did Dad do... why didn't he try to make himself human??? Did he try to model himself after the aliens in the story???? Or did he try to model himself after God or some other Gods??

7 - evil trolley problem....

Oh my god.....

I don't really know what to say

So Dad and Son aren't LITERALLY God and Jesus, it's more of the narrative Dad created. And whether or not Dad realizes it that's the implication he created. It could be intentional, the Bible was one of his listed sources of information.

And Dog isn't Judas, he was just another creation to test Son.

ALSO I was right about the clone thing :)c

[seawardboundsammy]

✨, 🍀, + ✂️ for ARTA and Phaedra? c:

✨- How did you come up with the OC’s name?

ARTA stands for Automated Radio Tower Attendant. ARTA is inspired by well. ART from The Murderbot Diaries, a series i have never read but have seen a lot of on my dash. i wanted her name to sound like an android title and i knew i wanted it to have "Radio Tower" as part of it and also a good bit of her deal is how the people who built her were. misogynists and "Attendant" ties to flight attendant and attitudes towards them.

Phaedra was originally called Phacelia to make them named after a flower, but it ended up being a little clunky to say and i kept calling them phaedra, so phaedra it was.

🍀 - What originally inspired the OC?

freaky android/human sex.

but really it was a combination of some androidy wire stuff i had seen floating around tumblr, my own love for radio towers, and my pookie ookie @radioactive-mouse 's love for scifi.

ive loved the concept of "A listens to a late night radio as their only real connection" for a long time and i wanted to throw some characters together for it

✂️ - What is one of your OC’s worst memories?

oh BOY.

ARTA doesnt have a lot of experiences under her belt yet but probably the worst one was the first time she saw her reflection. ok so tldr for the start of the story, Phaedra lists to a numbers station every day (very lonely) until that station stops transmitting. due to formed a weird parasocial relationship with whoever's reading the numbers, they go find this person with their ships, and what do you know, its actually an android. longer version in these discord ramblings.

ARTA pre-modded form is. Very Silicone Secretary. they didnt need to make this maintenance android wear a pencil skirt, but they did. her first outing with phaedra she sees her reflection in the glass of a building and that combined with how people are treating her, she gets Baby's First Dysphoria. dw she ends up 7 feet tall and butcher than a tractor.

phaedra's worst memory is that time they were running away from some people to wanted to take revenge on something they did and they ran to their family's ship (houses 4) and saw their mom and brother running towards them and when faced with the decision between abandoning them and risking getting caught, they chose to abandon them. and fun fact, those people didnt kill their family! phaedra fucked off and they were like "damn. what the hell thats fucked up."

also i dont think have posted these so have the picrews of basically what these two look like.

ARTA: pre-modifications, after mods [link] [link]

phaedra: honestly i gotta figure out their design more properly [link][link]

[away-ward]

To the anon who posted "one thing i hate about will was his manwhore tendencies/lowkey maybe “flirty” personality.", i agree with you 100%. Even worse when i remember that will said that he could easily "sink into alex" implying that he can have alex and alex have him, just like how rika could easily have kai if em and banks were not around. There's no "exclusivity" for their romance as if intimacy with others were so easy, so it does cheapen their feelings for their partners, and it can be seen like "so mich talk, but no actions". This was my main gripe with will too, because if he had the time to fuck around with other women, he had the time to email or call emmy and asked if she was homeless or dying, alright.

That's why i said, no MMCs in this book is possessive, not even damon, they all aint shit. The romantic parts were not giving, the bias were so obvious it ruin the fun of "a story with variety of couples" type of series, the men were scums from hell, even worse than mafia romances (and mafia romances had better arc, can you imagine that?! Even these mafia guys practice loyalty and monogamy wtf?!). Like if you guys want great dark romance, better not expect it from PD srsly, because if there's one constant thing i noticed that pd loves to use in their storytelling is to romanticise (?) something ugly, then abandon that ship and expect the reader to lap every second of it. They always wanna write something that goes beyond ugly (whoch is fine, many other authors like k. Webster and other do it too), but PD'S wrap up of their stories were always just pure shit. It's even disappointing because pd's idea was usually fun to read but man, the execution was just so 🗑️☠️

If there is one thing pd was really bad at, it's the middle and redemption arc, that's why whichever character that gets the shorter end of the stick in any of their books will always just have to stow in their hurt feelings without any further just ending for them. It happens in DN for banks and emory, it happens in Fall Away, it happens in credence noah and jake, in tryst six venom too, and at this point, only birthday girl and maybe hellbent were free from this, only because they dont have much "bully" elements to their stories. Even if there were some rough scenes in hellbent, the romance was still sweet, hot, monogamous and everything great you'd expect from the romance genre, but with a sprinkle of hot spice in it.

IMO, i didnt have much thoughts or feelings when will complimented banks, because he's literally like that with everyone, but when you guys discussed about it, he really was a bit too flirty with these women, huh? 🤣 now he made me pissed off to, and this just adds more to my will grayson's ick list, LOL! Becaus that mad sense, if we cant get angry at michael for looking at banks and kai at rika, why cant we with will?

Hey, I hope the Anon sees your message. And I also hope you don’t mind me popping in with some thoughts!

But you can ignore them too. I'll post if Anon replies.

Even worse when i remember that will said that he could easily "sink into alex" implying that he can have alex and alex have him

So I actually found this line interesting, because it can have two meanings, depending on how deep you want to look at it. One, is the obvious. He means penetration.

But the second is like drowning. Like how he used Alex, along with drugs and booze to, drown out his pain. It would be so easy to just try to love Alex and to sink into her because she doesn’t fight him; she numbs his pain. But at this point, he's come so far that he doesn’t want to be numb anymore. He’d rather fight with Emory than forget with Alex.

At least, that’s how I understood his thoughts in that scene.

because if he had the time to fuck around with other women, he had the time to email or call emmy and asked if she was homeless or dying, alright.

You’re not the first person to say this and, I hope you don’t mind, but it always struck me as a bit funny. Because if I was Will’s friend after he got out of prison and he told me he was going to try and contact Emory, I would have lost my mind.

Because, looking at the situation with only the information Will has, this is a girl who had repeatedly for three years told him ‘no’ and to ‘leave her alone’. Then, when he goes to prison for brutalizing her brother (who rightfully deserved it), she doesn’t reach out to him at all.

He's not sleeping with other women in prison. He’s not going anywhere. She knew exactly where he was every day and night.

I’d say with all of that, Emory had made it abundantly clear she didn’t want to be contacted by him.

So if he told me he was going to reach out “just to check on her” I would have tied him to a chair, and removed all access to the internet. No email. No calls. Hell, he doesn’t even get pen and paper. He can’t do smoke signals or morse code. Nothing.

It just seems to be that when a girl says no, we should respect that. So we can’t say we want Will to respect her but also ignore her when she says she doesn’t want him in her life. Because that’s what she told him. Repeatedly.

But also, it sort of does a disservice to Will to expect him to roll his heart out to her once again.

For three years, he begged, followed, and pleaded with her to see him. He goes to prison, and she still says nothing. Not even a thank you letter. Now, whether Em owned him any communication is up to the reader.

But even before then, Will was lost.

I propose Will didn’t just not like himself, but that he hated himself. He hated himself for wanting her so much. And he tries for years to root her out of his mind and heart. He tries to numb the pain with women and booze, because if the woman he wants doesn’t want him, what would be the point of acting like he’s in a committed relationship. Why mourn the loss of someone who was never his?

And I still think all of this is to cover up the fact that he hates himself. He’s trying to deaden the voice inside that says he’s worthless because Em didn’t see anything worth in him. He’s heartbroken and sick.

Now, if I were Will, and I had gone through all that and had tried to get this person out of my head and heart, only to see them once and realize they are still so deeply entrenched in every part of me? To realize that for years, all the stuff I’d done to try and kill off the love I felt for them, was useless because at the first sight of them I know without a doubt I’m still in love with this person who has made it very clear they want nothing to do with me?

I would feel so stupid. Just dumb. And broken.

But in NF, Will of course has a layer of anger to cover up his feelings. He wants to hurt Em for hurting him and it’s messy and wrong, but people often are.

All I’m saying is expecting Will to come out of prison wanting to get right back to where he left off in high school would be unfair to both of them.

but PD'S wrap up of their stories were always just pure shit. It's even disappointing because pd's idea was usually fun to read but man, the execution was just so 🗑️☠️

Unfortunately, I think this is the case. PD has great ideas, but somewhere along the line, at least for me, the story I’m interested in reading and the story they’re interested in telling diverge until I’m just confused as to how we ended up here.

because they dont have much "bully" elements to their stories

This is an interesting analysis. I wonder what it is about the “bully romance” trope that causes them to do this?

I know a lot of author get tripped up with arc enemies to lovers storyline because they don’t give enough time to let them come to respect each other before making them lovers? At least in my experience, it seems some authors try make the enemies part ‘oh they don’t really hate each other; it’s just hidden attraction’ but that’s not enemies to lovers!

Does PD do the same thing? Where they try to make it a bully romance but once the romance picks up, there’s no time to deal with all the previous bullying?

I don’t know. I’m just throwing things at the wall…

IMO, i didnt have much thoughts or feelings when will complimented banks, because he's literally like that with everyone, but when you guys discussed about it, he really was a bit too flirty with these women, huh?

I never minded Will be flirty with the women in the inner-circle, because I don’t think there was any real intent behind it, but I won’t waste an opportunity to bring up this clip so…

[b1rdeyes]

Alr so watched first two eps of s5 wwdits and my thoughts (in a numbered list woohoo):

1) Wait so the doc is called “what we do in the shadows” in universe?? Are they gonna have like a premiere ep way later in the series (like the offices qna kinda thing).

2) honestly I’m much happier than I was with the s4 premiere. I remember being pretty disappointed that we didn’t rlly get much from their Europe trip. I was so hoping that nadja and Guillermo would be friends/have mutual respect (quite a few ppl were talking ab it and I felt like it could have worked well and in hindsight we might have avoided the Freddie incident 😭). I remember being so mad like WHAT WE SKIPPED A WHOLE YEAR AND NOTHING CHANGED WITH GUILLERMO HE GOT SHIPPED IN A CRATE AGAIN?? I did like plenty of s4 (go flip yourself ep my beloved) but I wasn’t OBSESSED like I was with s1-3. I feel like this season might get me back into it more

3) love Colin he’s just always the same it never gets old lmaoo

4) just realized Derek’s wearing a collar and like punk pants lmaooo he’s getting a new look (maybe it’s not new at all but I only just noticed it now 😭)

5) the Sean fight at the bar lmaoo AND THEY STOLE THE POLICE CAR 💀💀 also laszlo’s pronunciation strikes again (“mutha-fuck-aas”) AND THE EVIL LAUGH AFTER “eat shit TERRY”

6) I KNEW LASZLO DIDNT ACTUALLY KNOW (well I only started thinking that when he was ab to confront Guillermo but 😭) WHYD U LET IT SLIP GUILLERMO

7) Based on some of the promo plz let Guillermo and laszlo be friends (I’m so desperate for at least one of them to treat him with a little bit of kindness consistently)

8) I want Guillermo to do some cool stuff so bad 😭. Like cmon do some special van helsing vampire kills. Ig he can’t slay anymore cause he’s also a vampire but PLEASE

9) Saw someone talk ab how the camera crew is more involved and yes it’s very interesting 👁👁

10) wondering ab what they’ll do with guide cause they added her to the intro (I am fairly certain that wasn’t in s4) cause she wasn’t in the first ep AT ALL

11) I hope they bring nadja into the main story with smth unique. Laszlo found out and is getting involved (kinda training him considering the promo). Guillermo is nandors familiar so there’s a lot of possible material involving nandor regarding his vampirism. Nadja rn seems like she’s stuck in this b team plotline with the guide. I will definitely wait and see, but considering it seems like just the guide faking the hex and nadja learning to be nice I’m prob going to be more into the Guillermo stuff (and that seems like it’ll mainly involve just laszlo and nandor)

Anyways, I really enjoyed it and I’ll just keep hoping that Guillermo will one day have one of the main vampires be kind to him (((:

[cindysnuts]

trigun stampede i just finished it and have so many thoughts but i can't possibly process them all so here's a more easily sharable sexuality hc list:

(oh and minor spoiler warning too)

Vash is like ace. he doesn't necessarily crave sex from any humans but could definitely be coaxed into it and fully enjoy it. if his physiology allows for that, i guess. Can probably experience romantic attraction too, but in a demiromantic way. Just demi overall

Nai: also ace but would NOT want to carnally enjoy a human. he'd hate it. has no romantic love for any human. for a plant maybe.

Meryl: idk i'm very gay and don't think about women's sexuality much, but probably bi. she could be straight but idk she has a special something I think. has been following around vash for long enough that she has a strong attachment to him. but is it love? probably. romantic love though? hmmmmm she'll have to figure that one out herself. i would like it more if it wasn't, or if she wasn't the only one... but we'll have to wait and see. she's close to Rem in Vash's mind... so no telling about that one.

Roberto: Old man, definitely straight, has definitely seen it all, has definitely made out with a man. didn't do much for him but them again what has? shared a cigarette with a man once though and it changed something about him permanently. so make what you will

Nicholas: ohhhh bitch. now this is the guy that inspired the list. he's still so young but so tired, he's seen so much. he loved that boy. catholicism has its ways though. not only does he bear that cross for the people he's hurt but for the people he's loved too. all are sins in the eyes of the cross in that way. only ever loved one man but that was enough. seeing straight into Vash's soul though... his vulnerability... his scars he's taken for loving... well let's just say this undertaker had something stir. definitely not love though. no he could never love again. monsters like him can't have love. so he definitely can't love Vash, and he didn't love Livio. or so he keeps telling himself. making that cross a little heavier. not all burdens are beared consciously.

Livio: ah yes, the little boy who fell in love with Nico so hard that he followed him to hell, to be an undertaker. a love so deep it's gonna tear them both apart. definitely gay.

Bluesummers: ah now we're on to the fun ones. these guys don't have the narrative weight to be wrapped in heavy metaphor that I don't wanna disrupt yet, so I'm a little more free with their speculation. this guy seems like he serves Knives like a god, but with that level of devotion who can tell the different kinds of love apart???? me, i can this bitch is flaming literally like f slur.

Zazie: not human, literally a hivemind, so I dont think sexuality really fits them at all. like literally i dont think they even have sex to reproduce?? so sexuality is a no lol. um that said they're also nonbinary cause they literally do not have human sex characteristics let alone human genders. unaligned evil enby you love to see it.

Rem: for catholic metaphor reasons i think she would have to be straight but she's a lesbian its why she didnt marry or have children of her own no i will not be taking questions at this time.

William Conrad: despite having two names that should make me personally feel insane he is instead a beleaguered straight man. he is a Priest, after all.

Ludia and Brad: again, straight probably for catholic narrative reasons, like Wolfwood's sexuality wouldn't be as big a burden if everyone was just gay. that said they are dyke 4 fag pair bonded permanently no i will not be taking questions at this time. actually since they live on the ship outside of the reach of the church maybe they could be gay and have it work narratively... hmmmmm.... homos

Gosef: gay asf you seen his little bowtie??

Prof. Nebraska: transgender mad scientist just loves his son.

Chuck Lee (goon from ep 1 had to google his name): straight subscribes to a space egirl's space twitch channel and buys her used space socks in a cringe fail incel way but he's supporting space swers so we kinda stan in a cringe fail way.

[neutrallyobsessed]

I challenge you to make a tier list of your opinion on Ace Attorney ships >;)

Challenge accepted motherfucker >;))))

i did like 5 different lists cause not all them where complete enough to my tastes and then i found this MASSIVE tier list (with a lot of crack xdd) so i was able to do it, fortunally the nrmy week gave me some time to work on this and EVEN THEN some kinda obvious ones were missing so i had to edit them in from the other tierlists, plus stuff i made up lol

also, for it not be too long and mark very clearly my Heterosexual Bias, the list was divided in two, so let's start: (spoilers for investigations cause shih-na doest appear as shih-na)

The OTP category is very self-explanitory, so the second place is all other ships that i like and ship too just not as hard since i have OTPs for the characters already~~

Ohters I like and Im listening have varying degrees of crack but im still considering as potential ships to like seriously

the canon ships acting as a neutral divider, they are canon, you can't complain about that (or you can im just a tumblr post you can do what you want forever). if they arent higher is cause they are not as interesting or funny as the above ships, i still love them very much

then theres the absolute crack that i find amusing but couldnt take to ship it seriously and then ships that are either boring: too tame, lack spice, feel like avoiding being problematic was the priority instead of they'd be cute togheter; or ships that feel a bit too cruel for comfort and i percieve as no longer fun, but sad

this tier list didnt have ema/nahyuta but did have poly ships that included the three so there we go, the only het ships i dont like (2)

finally, the only gay ships i consider to be neat, silly funny friends-to-lovers not overly popular, very cool and epic

And now, the interesting one:

Rangu referenced and teased by canon joke ship goes first of course!

for real tho, there's friends to lovers OR rarepairs OR lawyer x assistant ships, being my go-to in het ships they'd rank higher here

Evil People In Love! What else can I say? When 2 people are down bad for each other and down for destroying everyone and everything whether for revenge or the lulz cause they're bad and they're doing it togheter it's just beautiful~!

anything crack or toxic in a funny way goes next

incest as a neutral divider since being gay is super normal thus uninteresting but adding the taboo incest spice that will NEVER be approved by society IRL will make me a bit more interested but like you know- neutrally

any boring crack or toxic in a unfunny way goes next

and finally we reach my real (yet still neutral) beef with the ace attorney shipping fandom, being the popular ships that get talked about ad nauseum and if you wanna talk about any other ship you get ignored at best or harrassed at worst. Overrated could be the perfect way to describe this ships as they're so oftenly rated over other ships when they're SO LAME AND BLAND AND BRING ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. i am not criticizing originality, you know im unoriginal as well, but other fandoms have this something called ✨VARIETY✨ that EVEN IF the boring bland m/m ship still is number one ship of everyone and their grandmas, it'll still be in a relative equal number of fans and content (or directly opposite where Super Popular Ship has like 100 fans producing stuff and literally anything else has like <5, so you only have to block 1 or maybe 2 Super Popular Ships and then is smooth sailing full of variety~)

tl;dr they're annOyedTPs actually they're not bad, they are meh plus the over exposure can really grind someone's gears, second place being not AS popular thus annoying but still pretty much talked about and liked by many people as they are second places to ships in the normie zone

and finally finally what i actually dislike, shipping canonically het married characters with same-sex characters (and not in the funny way)(specially the gay best friend in love with their straight friend, my absolute belothed) or any flavor of enemies-to-lovers, whether it's a tame rivals-to-lovers or a legit hero x villian (stockholm syndrome can be fine but it depends on how its presented....or if it's... y'know funny) or same-age shipping where the characters maturity levels are SO DRASTICALLY DIFFERENT idk it feels kinda icky :////

In any case, i'm still answering asks for particular ships if y'all want a more in depth opinion ^w^

[bonesstiel]

Hi!! i'm asking a bunch of people but do you have any destiel au best friend to lovers fic recs???? pleaseeeeee (no abo) thank youuuuu!!!! or just any destiel AU (no abo) if you don't have any best friend to lovers fics? thank you so much!!

you bet your ass i have au recs!! i love to put those guys in situations. i tend to read longer fics because im insane, so most of these are over 100k. i feel like i have more best friends to lovers fics that are hiding in my bookmarks, so this might get updated later

Friends to Lovers

More Than Kisses - epistolary, two-person love triangle where dean and cas have been friends since they were teens. my Ao3 notes: "the penpal one!! book nerds!!! baltimore!!!"

alone together - quarantine fic, dean and cas are roommates, now forced to be around each other 24/7. cas pines, thinking that dean is straight

Carry You Home - non-linearish baseball AU, starting when dean and cas are in college. also: secret relationship! my AO3 notes: "i don’t understand baseball but OH FUCK I LOVED THIS SO MUCH"

Starstruck - dean and cas were childhood best friends, and now cas is a single father to claire and jack and dean is a movie star. dean comes out, and in the process references a childhood crush that sounds a lot like cas.

Playing With Fire - best friends to fwb in a D/s relationship. part of a larger series with other ships and there's a threesome, so watch out for that if its not your cuppa.

General AUs

Breathe Easy For A While - country musician dean starts working with producer cas. technically friends to lovers, but more of a meet-cute.

Prince Of My Heart - 400k+ words of a royalty/the bachelor AU. my AO3 notes: "red tbis entire thing in less than 24 hours while sick <3," which i consider a rave review

FROTUS (wip) - it would not be a bonesstiel rec list if i didnt include this fic it scratches my little tww and rwrb loving political science major brain right. cas is the president of the US and dean is a restaurant owner in Kansas. if u read nothing else on this list read FROTUS

The Way to a Man's Heart is Through Chlamydia - exactly what it sys on the tin. after a one night stand, dean has to track cas down to let him know he has an STD.

Let Me Come Home - the author's summary says it best: "It would be very inconvenient for Castiel to get a crush on Claire's foster parent."

Any Little Heartbreak - fwb to partners hospital AU, so so good i literally have quotes from this on sticky notes on my wall

What I Need - i love hospital AUs and i think this is my favorite. cas is a surgeon and dean is the only surgery tech he's willing to work with.

I have a million more, so just ask if you want more of a certain trope!! in going through my bookmarks for this i have discovered that i apparently hoard bdsm aus, hospital aus, kid fics, and two person love triangle fics.

[miriamundertale]

hi heres my current reading list for manga. still being updated. post is very very long so under a readmore. images are only if i have specific screencaps to help the big spam

The apothecary diaries

Clasic miriam strategy of reading the manga of a popular anime instead of watching it. I did not realise how like. Political drama this would be. It rules a lot. More stuff like this please.

Babanbabanban Vampire

Aw yeah. This is vampire yaoi i can get behind. This is vampire yaoi i can respect on a primal level across generations. Please give me more opportunities to fujo out about a vampire so pathetic and bad at being down bad he cucks himself.

Berserk

I guess it goes here now wtf. Curious where it goes but im not upset if it turns away from what i like. The last miura chapter was an ok open ending for me

Black clover

i originally started reading this due to it feeling like a good example of shounen as a genre with the good and the bad, and for a while was going to say its my "if you want to understand the genre just read it" rec but one piece has been here. just here 4 fun now

Bocchi the Rock!

Ill be blunt just watch the anime. I enjoy reading the manga but its pretty classical mid. mainlining shots of kikuri until the spinoff lands jokes on you im already blasted

Bocchi the Rock! Gaiden: Hiroi Kikuri no Fukazake Nikki

Hiroi spinoff This woman is too pathetic for her own good [redacted for public safety]

Im caught up, rough start but very fun overall and good horny art. hard to complain

Boku no Kokoro no Yabai Yatsu

Boku wa Kimitachi wo Shihai suru

This is one of my "this is blatantly porn" reads but its got some good fucked up elements that make it fun. i also pr it so woo

Boy's Abyss

Bungou Stray Dogs

see before reading himegoto i genuinely loved it despite it kinda getting comical with the fucked up ness near the end. now its fine, but i read for my girl chako

its pretty ok so far. i think its hilarious its made people go back and read classic lit

Chainsaw Man

God i love act two. Asa is the best possible followup to denji and seeing her and denji interract is going to make the inevitable fujimotofication of the story even more fun

Hazure Skill "Kage ga Usui" o Motsu Guild Shokuin ga, Jitsuha Densetsu no Ansatsusha

Yeah ik long name. its an isekai lite aka the whole "this is an isekai in all but including the start of an isekai" genre thats popped up lately. its very charming and gorgeously drawn

Heavenly Delusion

in terms of post apocalyptic stuff it stands out and winds up pretty fun. the art isnt something wild but stands out with its own charm

Henjo

Henjo is hornybait with fucked up age gap, so a very boring and tread upon category, but the target audience is clearly less the horny 20 year olds hunting high school girls and more the high school girls who think they can pull. An important part of the manga ecosystem.

The Summer Hikaru Died

the art style is really evocative and i do love me some weirdly fucked up yaoi. good recent pickup

Hikikomari Kyuuketsuki no Monmon

Isekai Meikyuu de Harem o

kinda slippin on this one. it feels like a bit that they abandon quickly but i do love my vampire media. Im also kinda sad the anime adaptation didnt really pick up interest in more being adapted.

In/spectre

See the solution to writing good het is to make them kinda fucked up in some way. This works even better with gay ships but two people with something wrong with themselves clicking together is too great not to use. This is me being vague so you read the manga

Ishuzoku Reviewers

I read this out of this fucked up interest in how the mangaka spends the majority of this horny isekai not worldbuilding but game designing the rules of this isekai. Its such a weird focus of priorities

fun concept fun art horny is fun fuck you

Jahy-sama wa kujienai!

Jahy is going to abolish capitalism

Ka「」Ku「」Shi「」Go「」To「

Please someone pick this up again please if you need an editor i will fucking do it just reach out

Jibaku Shounen Hanako-kun

This manga is fuckin gorgeous tbh. I think its close to its endgame and im excited to see how it goes

Kagurabachi

fuck you shut up fuck you i thought it would be funny. its pretty ok shounen. needs more homoeroticism though

Kemono jihen

Kobayashi-san Chi no Maid Dragon

Its a fun read and i like a lot of the character designs. It holds me pretty solidly at least

Kesa mo Yuraretemasu

Eiji masuda could make me read a manga about a wet dog undrying painted walls and id read in seconds and hype it up. Thankfully this is great above that. Romcom but entirely from an audience perspective is SUCH a fun idea.

Dramaid is watching someone with immense talent at writing domestic slice of life work REALLY hard at learning how to draw tits

The vampire dies in no time

I thought this was gonna be yaoi but instead its nothing but pathetic characters i absolutely love. Really good stuff

Mahou Shoujo ni Akogarete

Mieruko-chan

i dont need to justify reading this to you. you know its good. we all know its good. fuck you.

How is this not more popular. Great concept. Really striking art. Solid writing. I barely see anyone talk about it. Might be due to the really uninteresting anime adaptation

My hero academia

i just want to see this train crash

Natsume Yuujinchou

I love the show and the mangas no exception. Really enjoyable and yuki midorikawa's style is pleasant on the eyes

Noss and Zakuro

this is insanely cute on every level. you agree.

One piece

Its fucking real lads

One Punch Man (webcomic)

Welcome to gremlintown (we got an update :D)

One Punch Man (Manga)

thank god were free from garou arc

Onimai

goated.

Oshi ni Amagami

i like my funny vampire stories and this is a fun vampire neet one

Oshi no ko

i am committed to this idc about the outcome

Ousama Ranking

IMPLYING ANYONE EVER DOES 70-155 LMAO SORRY I LIKE READING THE MANGA cant believe you made me watch the anime. tl the missing chapters please

Please Give Me Your Blood, I Will Serve You In Gratitude

Miriam "Trashy Vampire Manga Fan" Undertale

Record of Ragnarok

i needed something trashy and fun and this does it

Rent a Girlfriend

my least defensible read. its garbage. i hate it. its horrible trash and i read it purely out of some weird revival of the author attempt to understand miyajima innately and emotionally through his work

Sakamoto days

Im sorry it took me this long to hop on. I wasn't familiar with your game.

Senpai ga Uzai Kouhai no Hanashi

This manga gives me severe dysphoria and yet i keep reading it. well not rly because its kinda gotten mega boring

Shingeki no Eroko-san ~Hen na Oneesan wa Danshikousei to Nakayoku Naritai~

Continuing her streak of having the biggest mind ever, yoshiru konogi pops off with the manga targeted towards pathetic 30 year old women who want a high school boy to a massive degree

Shojo null

Art is cracked and the energy is utterly hogwild. I love the "no actually please torture your oppressors" vibe so far

SHY

im so happy im getting updates again. anime was good despite low budget. excited for s2 yes yes yes

Skip and loafer

The art style is so lovely and its a breath of fresh air compared to a lot of the romance ive been reading lately

Sono Bisque Doll wa Koi wo Suru

Its fun fuck you. The seasonals in 2022 had a great selection of source materials and bisque doll slams it out of the park

Sousou no Frieren

the severe nature of how much this goes will never be beat.

Spy x Family

Its good and thats Fine. no clue whats going on with the manga it feels like i get maybe an update every 5 months

The Dungeon That Kills All Adventurers

another dowman sayman banger who could have predicted this

To Your Eternity

TYE is enjoyable though i think its kinda suffering from jojofication. i think it deserves an ending soon

Usuzumi no Hate

i refuse to believe this is this mangakas first work. this is fucking incredible. gorgeously drawn with an incredible concept. read now

The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You

the type of peak that could only exist to those willing to brave their own doubts. a work of art that will only exist for those strong enough to resist their hearts saying "cringe"

The Case Study of Vanitas

who could have predicted gay vampires are good

VERSUS

Why are we once again in a world where people are not translating kino by one

Vinland Saga

Man this grew on me fast. I picked it up not expecting a lot and got the world with it

Witch Hat Atelier

Yorashi Ni warau

At this point it feels like im very obviously drawn to pretty stuff but honestly its a really good read. Qifrey and olruggio should kiss already

Witch watch

I was lied to about there being vampires as a core part of things. But in return i got a really cute comedy that has just enough of the right type of derrangement to worm into my brain. Good mistake.

I cannot get over the art still, fucking gorgeous, the story hasnt really gotten stuck in my craw like some other things but the art genuinely makes up for it.

Yotsuba

Yotsuba is one of the mangas of all time

zom 100

this is one of those "i saw the start of a genre trending and assumed one of the main firestarters would be bad" stories and im glad i was wrong. it's very charming in a kinda fun childish way

[jonphaedrus]

2022 fic year in review

2022 was a weird year. i pulled an all-nighter on feb 16 and i was possessed by the ghost of prfr past and an opera only i care about and then i woke up ten months later (kidding. i have not woken up at all) nearly a million words later and with my entire life in slight disarray and an unbreakable obsession with pokémon villain from baby jrpg fake france

anyway let's do the breakdown. im gonna take some questions from the overall ao3 wrapped lists going around, and then do the greatest hits/thoughs of all my fav fics from every month of the year (by posted date, including if it was adjusted for reveals; im not taking into account when things were "actually" written, but also neither will ongoing wips still unfinished count)

total word count in 2022: i waited to post this until id posted my final fics of the year and got the final count and cant stop staring at that 780k total. wtf. some of this is wips from across multiple years updated in 2022 (and much of it is roleswap which is going to get bumped into 2023...) but it's the most i've ever written on my own, ever. multiple past years combined. i stuggled so much with writing from 2018-2021 and i thought i'd never find it as easy or relaxing again and to have found joy in my words makes me so happy. LOOK HOW MUCH I WROTE! WHAT THE FUCK!!!!

fav fic i wrote this year: not counting ongoing wips (sorry roleswap. otherwise roleswap would be like the #1 thing on every answer), "tomorrow you must love me" is the best thing ive ever written (before roleswap) and it was such a joy and struggle to work on. i was so nervous and scared writing every bit of it but it came out exactly the way i wanted to. learning how to write longfic (for me) has been such a beautiful experience and it's made me so happy to share with others!

fav fic i read this year: "do let the old enmity be" by sam (my favorite gift anyone has ever given me on ao3 i cant—i cant even handle it i melt i explode i climb onto the rooftop to holler across the atlantic ocean), both fics in sam's mutual pining series (i have read both of these fics so many times... my favorite sam fics. or close to my favorite sam fics. we met because of mp1... these two STUPID, STUPID FUCKING FISH!!!!) and "mira vs. sasha cant" which might not have been written for me but it was written to infiltrate my brain and give me strength beyond imagining. oh, my god, it's so good, please read it. I AM NO LONGER ASKING.

fav series i read this year: royals having a nice time by ba_lailah. if you like polyamory, gender, sex (both the kind you do with other people and the bits attached to the body), pregnancy, family, parenthood, developing relationships, realism and worldbuilding, kids, the complexity of monarchy and the realities of rule, really REALLY REALLY hot porn, and some of the best bdsm ive ever read, treat yourself and go read rhant. there's a 250k novel coming this year. it's incredible. worth your time. go. read it.

fav exchange this year: fic in a box. the chance to play around with mediums and stylesheets and the exchange community around fiab was lovely. all the pinch hits i wrote were so much fun—i literally don't think i saw a single prompt i didnt adore!—and the mods were fabulous and i got LITERALLY THE BEST GIFT EVER. fiab is honestly a ton of fun. if you're new to exchanges and you want to try something a little out of left field, i really recommend fiab! the signups can be sort of esoteric but don't let the mediums or the complexity of the rulesets scare you off (they almost scared me off but sam coaxed me through it like a nervous small mammal) or the 10k minimum. you can break that up in so many ways (vids, art, cross stitch or knitting patterns, pixel art, voxel art, interactive fiction, asw remixes, comics, poetry, drabbles, standard fic, social media...) that it's really accessible and encourages so much thinking out of the box. i am SO EXCITED for next year.

fav ship i wrote for: GEE, I FUCKING WONDER.

fav character pov to write: you might think "prfr, either half" but no. it's shauna, actually. i love writing her and her perspective on things. she's so relatable and i just. i love her. her voice comes so easily to me, i cant wait to write her more in 2023

fav scene i wrote: a three-way tie between "as you treated him, so shall i treat you" which is just one scene but it set me on such an unexpected and amazing path to meeting some of my best friends and the most important people in my life and improving my craft and becoming so much happier on every axis ALL BECAUSE I DIDNT SLEEP AND I WAS MAD NOBODY ELSE HAD WRITTEN LYSANDRE GETTING STEPPED ON.... the scene with shauna and augustine in the grass in "with tenderness and pretty words it is easy to conquer good girls' hearts" which was a lot of catharsis for me as well as augustine and shauna, and a very specific chapter late in roleswap. i'm not saying which one. that's for me to know and you to find out.

wip i finally finished: inspired by the ficwip server, i've been working (slowly) on some of my old wips, and finally finished starry heavens, which was meant to be done like eight years ago. it's character studies of every major character in tales of symphonia, and getting to see it in full and my growth as an author over the better part of the last decadeis a little humbling. ive come so far! writing is great actually!

wip i've yet to finish: roleswap. 2023. we will do it. it will be done. as soon as my fffx is draft complete, roleswap is my heart and soul.

most read fic: it is (a little unsurprisingly given how long it is...) roleswap! which makes me so, so happy. sam and i have worked so hard

longest fic (completed in 2022): "tomorrow you must love me" at 57k

shortest fic: apparently it was "in which the author reaches the end of his rope" at 193 words. i didnt even remember writing this so jkhlkdfjhglsdhkfg

fav fic title used: "RÉEL FIBSHING: LUMIOSE CITY EDITION" which is twine-style interactive fiction about magikarp jump, set in sam's "as the night the day" universe which i wholeheartedly adore and you should go read it.

biggest surprise while writing: how much easier it is for me to do multi-chapter and longform works! i've always really struggled in the past to stay committed and complete things, but this year i've really started to move into the realm of being able to just... write longfic! that's very exciting to me.

fav comment received: shout out to ao3 users yelp, who is an absolute delight in exchanges. like, seriously, yelp is such a sweetheart. omg. i would write for them in an exchange again in a heartbeat and their comments are so sweet.... and also every other comment i got. thank you ;;v;; they make me so happy... i hardly ever even know what to say

fav fic author i read: i wonder who that ao3 user samifer is. what a guy. in all seriousness, this year my favorite authors were my friends. they helped me out, gave me advice, and made me feel so full of love i can't even begin to say how much. i'm so lucky to know these amazing people and i can't encourage you to read everything by sam, kay, neku, lailah, or sushi enough. theyre all amazing fabulous authors and fantastic people and i love them so much. you should go love them too!!!!!

total fics/chapters uploaded: 174. i said that aloud and my husband said "holy crap babe" from the other room. what the actual fuck

what am i most looking forward to next year: FINISHING ROLESWAP IM SO EXCITED ITS ALL IM THINKING ABOUT!!! IM SO READY AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

ok and finally under the cut my favorite fic from each month of 2022!

JANUARY 2022 -- SINCE THE DARK (owain & l'arachel, gen)

i've been doing nagamas since the very first year and it's still one of my favorite exchanges. getting to play around with a narrator as fun as owain and contrasting him with l'arachel was great and seeing their crossover interactions was so good. nagamas gr9 actually. 10/10 exchange will always participate again

FEBRUARY 2022 -- AS YOU TREATED HIM, SO SHALL I TREAT YOU (prfr, m)

what else, lol? i didnt sleep i listened to an entire opera, i blacked out, i woke up ten months later and discovered i'd moved in and written like four novels. i am never moving back out. i love everyone in this house. especially sam.

MARCH 2022 -- IN EVERY PLACE, AT EVERY TIME (prfr, e)

inspired by sam prompting for phone sex and mutual pining, playing around with academia and conferences and giving this the most #onbrand title/chapter title/summary combo i could come up with this also led to me meeting new dear friends!!

APRIL 2022 -- TOMORROW YOU MUST LOVE ME (prfr, e)

im so stupid proud of this fic. setting up a plot this complex with so many moving pieces and multiple povs and multiple mediums and dealing with so many real life issues was a lot of moving pieces but it was so, so worth it. it was worth all of the work because it's one of the best things ive ever written and it came out just how i wanted to and it helped me make my friends happy and aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa i just love prfr and writing c/c/c has been just amazing and I WILL KEEP GOING NEXT YEAR!! THIS YEAR WHATEVER IT'S 2023 NOW BUT WHATEVER ITS STILL 5783

MAY 2022 -- WHO COULD USE FORCE AGAINST A HEART LIKE HIS (IV) (prfr, e)

sam prompted me for using bdsm as therapy and i wanted to write cnc and it spiralled very out of control. one of the questions someone asked early on with c/c/c was what happened at The Incident and i'd intended to write that and playing with vanilla sex and safewording and cnc and trust was really difficult and i've struggled off and on for most of the year with this series of 5+1 but every one as i've finished it has been such an accomplishment even when it's been hard. especially when it's been hard.

JUNE 2022 -- 'TIS NOT LONG BEFORE THEY FEEL THEIR FEEBLE SOULS BEGIN TO REEL

how, HOW, HOW??? WAS I THE FIRST PERSON TO (APPARENTLY??) WRITE T4T SEX POLLEN FIC ON AO3? anyway it was fun and the result is sexy sexy sex

JULY 2022 -- AS THOUGH IT WERE POSSIBLE TO COMMAND LOVE

sam asked for prfr one bed and then FIFTY THOUSAND FUCKING WORDS LATER they finally made it to the bed and fucked in it. good for them.

AUGUST 2022 -- SILKEN DALLIANCE

the entire writer's month challenge was an experience (writing that much every day for a month... im glad i did it but im not doing it again i dont think dfkjhgkdfhg) but of all the fics i wrote i think this was my favorite. i really struggled with this prompt and i wasn't all that happy with it as i was writing it/right after but as time has passed i've been more and more proud of it.

SEPTEMBER 2022 -- TIRED OF THIS BODY

i dont really have anything insightful to say here. uh. getting into new and slightly unexpected kinks is character growth?

OCTOBER 2022 -- ONE CANDLE IN THE RAIN

something something if i had a nickel for every trans serial killer au i've written id have two nickels which is a weird number of nickels to have for something this specific and niche. anyway getting into new and slightly unexpected kinks (and then getting your friends into new and slightly unexpected kinks) is character growth

NOVEMBER 2022 -- WHO COULD USE FORCE AGAINST A HEART LIKE HIS (V)

i stuill have mixed feelings about this fic. i think this was like... my fifth or sixth attempt at writing it, and it honestly still didnt turn out exactly how i wanted it to and im a little bit frustrated by that, but as much as i tell people it doesn't have to be perfect it just has to be done, i struggle with "done, not perfect" and "done, not perfect" here meant i finished this and it made me happy. ive learned a lot this year and one of the things i learned was to let go of perfection and finish stories and be happy with the growth from them. this grew out of so many ideas and the way it ended up is just right just the way it is.

DECEMBER 2022 -- AZURE AS ANTEDILUVIAN SONG or RÉEL FIBSHING: LUMIOSE CITY EDITION

fiab was such a good exchange ;__; i had so much fun and i can't wait to do it again next year. pinch hitting and treating and getting to write for some of my best friends and trying out new mediums was so much fun and i definitely feel like i grew a lot as a writer in the process. writing interactive fiction was a new one for me (i've never written anything even like a choose your own adventure even just for friends before as a kid or anything) and it definitely was a new experience, especially playing around with 2nd person like that, and twine had a learning curve, but it was a fun learning curve c: azure as antediluvian song came out of me all in one go based on a prompt without even intending to write it. kazuha is my favorite genshin character and i loved this au concept and getting to play around with ayato was unexpectedly enjoyable! genshin lore good.

[keibea]

@lazysunjade tagged me in this because she knows me well I LOVE U THANK U this is going to be a lot of me fangirling, i apologise

three ships;

okay so i have the slight issue of only shipping two people together when i know they'll end up together because i am not getting my heart broken even though they're fictional characters so most of these couples are already together....which i believe still counts as a ship? idk. i could also go on for a wayyy longer list but heres the three i could think of at this point in time....

1. Anne Shirley & Gilbert Blythe - Anne of Green Gables (I'm mostly thinking of them from the 1980 tv/movie or the book and not the show Anne with an E because I grew up with that movie but the concept still stands) 2. Penelope Featherington & Colin Bridgerton - Bridgerton (BECAUSE THEY NEED TO BE TOGETHER IF THEY ARENT I AM SUING EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE moving on) 3. Iona & Jaoven - The Heir and the Spare by Kate Stradling (im obsessed with this book tbh)

favourite sims ships (stealing @crow-simblr 's idea because it really is a super cute one!);

eva and mako / en pointe / @thesimperiuscurse (MY BABIIESSS) yehl and taryn / age of arcanai / lazysunjade theo and frederick?? (i hope they're the right couple LOL) / rip dani-paradise i LOVED HER STORY AHHH ceddy and sloane / britechester / @moonsonnet IM LOOKING AT U BOTH

first ship;

so ages ago there was a show every witch way which i used to adore watching and daniel and emma were everything and when she didnt pick him i was actually shouting at the tv i was so sad my parents still make fun of me for it till this day. @akioakashiya will probably be the only one that knows what im talking about LOL

last song;

remedy by adele

last movie;

i believe it was Redeeming Love

currently reading;

summerhaven by tiffany odekirk (just finished it ABSOLUTELY ADORED IT!! beautiful clean regency read if you're into that sort of thing!)

currently consuming;

my mums brownies :)

currently craving;

CHOCOLATE unsurprisingly for everyone that knows me. that and cc

i shall tag @thesimperiuscurse , @amuhav (who are here to make up numbers because they wont do it) , @rollo-rolls , @johziii , @akioakashiya , @catharsim , @plumbobem and everyone else :D sorry if youve been tagged already! and dont do it if u dont want to okay? okay.

[gay-salt-amber]

How do you think each ships' "first night" was like/how did it go??

(I hope you meant this in the horni sense instead of just first night together-)

I feel like a lot of them were more ready then they taught cuz keep in mind these people are/just came out of their teen phase so horni people and also, they mess around all the time with one another

Imma be saying how the first time happend and rating in on 1-10 on sucessfulness because I can

Jamikaliaces first night was after one of the light music clubs shows, the other two thought Kalim would be tired but, no. When that boy is horni he will go all night if he wants to. 7 out of 10. It was nice but they didnt really think of aftercare

Epel 5s was very rushed because Leona had to go home for royal duties but he wanted to do something with his bois so Epel and him started making out, the others joined in and... ye. 6 out of 10. Rushed. However the next time was much more enjoyable

Riddles bois had one of the best on this list. They're first night was in one of the private monstro lounge rooms, this room also had a hot tub which just turned the bois on so much. They tried to be quiet but with those four? Thats not happening. 9 out 10 pretty good but I'm saying the top spot for another pair

Rookvilneige actually planned this unlike most of them, so there was roses, wine, music, dim lighting, etc. Rook def was not expecting to be the bottom and fully went into this thinking he was gonna top Neige and Vil. No. He was VERY wrong. 10 out of 10. Perfect planning and good aftercare

Idiazulmal.. I wanna say it would go good until they realized Idias only fans stream was still going. 5 out of 10 would have been fine have that not have happened